You can grab yourself a free, yes thats right FREE, set of lists to help you construct your forces for the SCW. Too Fat Lardies offer a great deal of support for their rulesets, and Chain of Command is no exception, for those of you wanting to have a go, but are not sure how the rules work, then we have a solution for you too

They have created a series of videos, running through the rules, above is part one, and its well worth clicking through and watching the whole set, because it gives a very good insight on how the rules work.

Right then, car loaded and off to the club I go. Its takes a litle while to get into the hall, as the promised Tapdancers are not there, so the hall is firmly locked, and I have no keys!!!!
Rescue arrives, in the shape of Andrew Knapp, and he scoots off to get the keys.

Once inside, with the help of a few club members, I get set up and ready to go, and this is how the board turns out

I decide the "Attack on an Objective" scenario would be a good one to play out, the objective being holding the junction on the far side of the river, that joins the main Madrid road

Objective, reach the road, control the junction

Clive Waterhouse has brought along his collection of Anarchist FAI/CNT militia, and adding those to my figures gives the Republican commanders a full platoon to play with.

After rolling for support options, they decide a bit of command assistance is required, so they add El Hombre, which gives them a bit of flexibility, and to boost their firepower, they take an LMG team, not much to add, but it proves to be an excellent choice in the end.

I manage to scrape together a Foreign legion platoon, minus a few bits n bobs ( No 50mm mortars, and no scouts). There support options are a lot better, and they trundle out a Panzer 1, and give themselves a bit of heavy firepower, by buying an 81mm mortar with an observer to direct its fire.

One learn straight away, I do not have enough figures painted to put on a decent game, and I fully intend to buckle down, and get more stuff finished.

The patrol phase gets underway, and we are fortunate that a new member has turned up, his name is Paul, and he knows the rules!! Hurrah :-)

Paul helps us to fumble our way through the patrol phase, and eventually we get some jump off points sorted.

Patrol markers on the move, with the Nationalists getting over the river, which proved to be very useful in the game.

Another learn, get there early, get set up quickly, and put a time limit on the patrol phase. I spent far too long farting about with terrain, and the patrol phase got very tactical, meaning that the game proper did not kick off until after 9pm; not good.

So lets bung a few pics up, with some captions, rather than a blow by blow, he rolled a 6 and 1 and 2 etc etc

The Anarchists take cover, with their LMG covering the road, this turned out to be their most effective weapon, trading fire with a Legion squad in the house opposite, and towards the end, firing in desperation on the advancing Pz1

Legion Condor in the guise of Panzergruppe Drohne men in a Panzer 1A begin their attack on the town

The Anarchists view of the approaching danger

Anarchist commanders agonizing over their next move.

They decide to move forwards, but are caught in the open by the Nationalists firing their 81mm Mortar, and forcing them down to take cover, they never recovered from this, and spent most of the game pinned in the olive grove

The Legionarios break out of cover, and start to attack the houses.

They know that the Anarchists are hiding in the houses, after being fired on by them.

The relentles advance of the Nationalist super weapon, and thats the fun of these SCW games, no uber tanks. Where a Pz1 is a game winner. This one trundles on, with LMG fire pattering off its front armour, as the Anarchists try to get a lucky shot through the vision slits.

Anarchists debating their orders, in true style, Andy and Clive debated their moves, trying to marshall the scant forces available to them, at one stage I thought they were going to vote on them!. A gleeful Nationalist commander, in the shape of Stephen, watches their efforts.

The endgame begins, the Legionarios asaault the houses, dring the Anarchists out by bayonet point, and they rout in confusion. The Nationalists take two of the Anarchist jump off points, and its virtually game over.

What can I say?

Well, after our first efforts, I am glad to say that this game went a lot better. I think it really is a case of play play and play some more, so the rules stick. The rules themselves give you a great tactical game, and remove the usual I go, you go sequence favoured by quite a few rulesets.

The Anarchists were hampered by their lack of command dice, just 4 to roll each turn, and having no junior leaders in their squads, getting them to do anything was quite hard, which is why taking the El Hombre option was such a good idea, they have a woeful lack of firepower too, not helped by the Nationalist side rolling low dice on the support options ( still not entirely certain we have got this bit right)

The Legion found it a lot easier, having an abundance of commanders to activate, and that extra command dice made a difference. Picking the tank, and the Mortar gave them a definate advantage, and the effective deployment of these, meant the Anarchists had a tough time of it. There was a lot of hiding in houses, but once we got going, it was a bit more fluid moving.

We could not fight it out to a conclusion, as we ran out of time, this was more due to the fact that we had to refer to the rules a fair bit, plus we began the game a bit too late. Once we have had a few more games, I think its going to be easy to get a game finished in time, and I'm loking forwards to having another go.

So, in conclusion, the Chain of Command rules give a fast, fun and thinking game, making players look very hard at what they are doing.

Thanks go out to Andy, Alan, Clive and Stephen, for puting up with me fumbling my way through the game, and also to Paul for stepping in with useful advice, to help us along.

Sunday, 26 July 2015

After the somewhat optimistic post about taking advantage of the nice weather, I find myself gazing through the rain streaked window, watching the gale force wind ,swirling various things around our lovely garden, summertime has been and gone, end of July, more like bloody November here at Higgins Towers.

Not the most ideal weather, for a session of making terrain boards on the patio.

Driven indoors, and at a bit of a loose end, yes ok, I did say I would finish Pyrrhus, but I did'nt enjoy painting the models, and the frustration at my inability, to plonk some pigment on a Cretan Archer, had me desk diving again.
The dedicated followers of my idiot ravings on here know by now, that means,
I will find something, then get fixated, try to paint it, get frustrated, put it away, sulk a bit, then, hmmm I wonder whats under there?.................I think you can understand the cycle of despair by now.

Well, Spain has returned to the desk, I had the lads on standby anyway, so it was a simple process to push Pyrrhus into a box, and fill the desk with random Anarchists, and a token ethnic minority, in the shape of a Moroccan cavalry scout I have converted.

We now have this view, when we plant our fat arse onto the leather desk chair.

Lets have a closer look

Its mostly militia on this side, in various stages of paintyness, lots of converted loveliness in this lot, mostly head swappery, so we have a few lovely ladies, a wounded Legionario, with an attending Medico. Over the back there is the Moroccan scout, and accompaniying him, we have a Militia despatch rider slaking his thirst, whilst holding his trusty Motorcycle. The other two models are crew from the Anarchist car, remember that project? :-)

I work on a number of figures at a time, so you tend to find a weird selection of half painted nonsense littering my painting space, as I get towards finishing an individual figure, I then concentrate on that one, and try to get it off the lids, and onto a base.

The figures on the right are a lot further forwards, and I will try to get those squared away this week.

No organisation at all, and thats perhaps why I don't get a lot of stuff done.

Down here, we have some Legionarios, the plan was to send these "up North" to the talented Andrew Taylor, to get him to slap some of his excellent paintyness onto them. Sadly, real life intervenes, and I have limited funds, so I shall have to add my own Paintyness to them, until my financial embarrassment passes, and I can employ Mr Taylor's talents on some other models.

Sometimes though, you get some completed models, and this motley crew will be joining the FAI/CNT force, once I get their basework squared away

From left to right, converted Anglian/Empress militiaman (headswap) Footsore/Musketeer Brigand, Anglian/Empress Militia, with a Crooked Dice Female head swap, and on the end, an Artisan Design partisan/resistance fighter. Just goes to show how a little application, and a careful trawl through various ranges, can add a lot of variety to your militia force.

For those of you how wish to engage in some head switching fun, I shall point you in the general direction of this, rather iffy, video presentation, which may, or may not help you in your endeavours.

Sunday, 19 July 2015

As the summer slowly ticks away, I've suddenly realised, that if I want to take advantage of the nice weather, I had best get my arse into gear :-)

I have these boards to do you see, as New Buckingham don't possess any sandy, scrub type terrain, I thought I should make some of my own to take over, of course there is an ulterior motive to this, I want to do the boards, so I can use them to put on a game at a show, this show most likely being one of the Partizan ones.

So, into the garage I dive, and dig out the collection of pink boards, then lay them out on the grass to have a dekko at what I have.

So people, here is the cunning plan.

The board will be sort of flat, up to the bit at the end, where it will climb up towards a small plateau

The hill section at the end will consist of a small village town, climbing up to a church at the top.

Something along those lines, with perhaps not so many buildings, more perhaps like this

Now I have a problem do I embed the road sections into the boards, or make some lay on stuff to use instead?

I suppose, using lay on sections will mean the boards will get more use, making them a bit more generic, I shall have to experiment with some bits n bobs, and see what I can come up with

So, a little bit of work to do, and first off, I will try to shape the hill section at the end, and then work out the layout of the town. I already have a church, it will get a few alterations, so it does not look like the original model (Empress) can't be having that now can we :-)

Ok, so the game will consist of, the road to Madrid, running down the rough centre of the board, the town/village on the hill, the rest of the terrain I will figure out as I go along.

I do want to include an Olive Tree plantation, along with a little processing plant, and that will be made from this

I kinda threw this together, just to get it on the board for a game on two, and its really not that well painted, so bringing it back to life is another little side project, plus I get to practise a bit with painting buildings, and yes It won't be a twee little whitewashed job.

I don't like the roof, these tile sheets, are just far too uniform, so that just has to go.

I managed to pick up some sheets on E-Bay, the idea now being to cut them up, and do a bit of subtle rearranging, to get a more random look to them, and this messing about with tile sheets is all going to help in the long run, as there will be a few roofs to construct.

The model will get a new board to sit on, with some added scenic items to set the scene, and I am going to replace all the doors, with something more Spanish looking.

Saturday, 11 July 2015

Forlornly hanging around the edges of the painting desk, in their various half painted states, thinking to themselves

You see, it goes like this

Crash, bang, wallop, and a desk full of twisted plasticard, tortured into various bits, its all the fault of that Mad Max bloke, and his Fury Road nonsense. My head was easily turned, seduced by the world of roaring V8 engines, and the prospect of racing across the Post Apocalyptic world, in the hunt for Guzzoline, and my own harem of foxy breeders.

I've spent many a fruitless hour, trying to hack and melt my own little fleet of mental vehicles, the finished result, well its one solitary Motorcycle, and that has taken me an age to finish. Have to face it, I am not very good at this model making malarkey.

Admitting defeat, I carefully pack away the plasticard, and seal the lid of the liquid poly firmly shut, Then the rummaging starts, like some grey haired ferret, I sniff my way through the stack of boxes lurking under the desk.

first off we find some half painted SCW figs (remember that project), and they duly take their place on the desk of doom...............painty painty painty, brown, khaki, drab, boring, fed up, back into box.

Then, its time for King Arthur to ride out, galloping across the desk, cloak flying in the breeze, along with his stalwart men, they face the Saxon hoard ( well ok, three figures blu-tacked onto some old paint lids) I work out how many figures I need, for a game of Dux Britttanorwhotsit ( remember that project?) and discover that perhaps my willpower will not stretch that far, and I would like to have a game with something I have managed to paint, before the end of summer comes.

I cry a little bit, and as I wipe away the tears of frustration, my eye falls on a single random little fellow, there he is lying all innocent like, on the desk lamp base.
I pick him up, and place him carefully onto the desk

Mr Grey, although not in the 50 shades sense, but rather the hard polystyrene version.

I'd forgotten all about him, and his placcy mates, so here we have the best of both worlds, some plastic to hack and melt, followed by a bit of painty painty, in some nice fetching shades.

A big shiny box of Victrix Italian Allies, and they look like nice little fellows to paint too.

So units to add, figures to paint, and some new rules to boot.

With a sweep of his mighty hand, the desk now looks like this

Yes, Pyrrhus is back, and this time its war, Fat Boy Higgins v The Eagle King

and I shall get them finished, they will take their rightful place, upon the hallowed boards of New Buckenham Historical Wargames Club

To hack and slay their way through the mighty opponents placed against them. Victory shall be ours, unless of course we have to face that Lee Abbott bloke and his uncanny dice throwing skills.

Ohh the thrill of it all

Next time out, I will be reviewing a few new bits n bobs, the Victrix figures, and a quick dekko at the Sword and Spear rules I want to have a crack at.

Monday, 4 May 2015

A Lot of Things Happened in a Day at the Forum

I go to shows, not as many as I used to, since I stopped trading, but I get to the nearest ones to me if I can. Diceni is in Norwich, about as close as you can get, as its a little under 20 miles down the road.

For those of you who don't know much about this show, let me tell you a little about it, no lets let the show tell you about itself

Whats this Diceni all about ??

Diceni is a games event organised by Lee Lowe, and his band of Dicenian's that help's promote Tabletop, Board, Card, and RPG gaming as well as the costume worlds of Cosplay and LARP. There will be traders selling a wide range of hobby related item, from Board games, to miniatures, paint etc etc. We will have lots of demo/participation games for you to come along and enjoy.Organising a fun and free entry event each year has meant that thousands of gamers and non gamers can enjoy a day of games, meeting up with friends and making new ones in this vibrant, interesting and creative hobby.

We love the world of cosplay and the colour and artistic skills it takes to portray a character. Diceni is a Cosplay friendly zone and we invite you to come along, show of your latest creation and help brighten up the event.

Diceni has helped and continues to help charities, every year we give a sum of money to help a local charity not as commonly recognised like some of the larger well known ones but just as important all the same, Hedgehog shelters, Nelsons Journey, dog rescue centres.

We've even supported a lovely little dog named Storm and her foster parent Sally from Hasslefree miniatures ( Another of the shows Sponsors) to have an operation to help her see again :)

So, we are about games, painting, fun, dressing in costume, making friends, relaxing, painting, helping others and we do it all for free!

Please help the event by purchasing some of our goodies found on the website or by simply telling your friends and family about us.

For those of you who currently involved in the hobby, we have lots for you to get excited about . For those of you who currently don't, come along and have a look, you never know, you might be the next generation of gamers, painters, game's designers, sculptors or cosplayers.

The Forum is a lovely venue, very airy, loads of space to move around, and slap bang in the heart of the lovely city of Norwich, so if you gents want to go play soldiers, you can let your lovely partners shop to their hearts content, in the two shopping centres the city boasts.

As you can see, its not a tightly crammed, no space to move show, although it does fill up as the day wears on, its never so crowded to be uncomfortable.

This show was a bit different for me, I have attended shows previously as a punter, as a demo-gamer and as a trader, so I have experienced the wargames show in all its glory, and all its horror as well.

This time round, I was just going along as a punter, my trading days are long past, and as I'm not so much of a club regular these days, I don't tend to get involved in the demo games anymore. Then the fickle hand of fate intervenes, Lee Lowe, the gent who organises the Diceni show, put out a plea on the show's Facebook page, they had a last minute cancelation, and wanted to try and fill the free space, did anybody know a trader, or something that could drop in at short notice to fill the gap?

I hesitated, just a moment, and then typed, " I could set up a table, showing how to scratch build stuff" thinking they will never want something daft like that!!

You've guessed it, Lee said great idea, so I found myself, packing up a pile of stuff, with some trepidation, as I worry far too much about what people will say, about the stuff I make.

Saturday morning, and I'm all set up. I have a lovely spot, next door to a trio of very talented painters, there I sit thinking, oh crap why did I suggest this.

Chris Cope from the New Buckenham Historical Gamers pops over for a chat, they have a 28mm set up showing the attack on the British squares at Waterloo, he is on the scrounge for some paper, he passes some very nice comments about how good my set up looks, and the way its laid out to explain how the vehicle master process works. I feel a bit calmer now.

Stupid me, took a camera, but not a single picture did I snap, so I cannot show you the table set up, and hope someone else has taken one, if they have, I will share it, saying that, if you look very carefully at the above picture, you can just about make me out top right, just to one side of the brightly lit shop.

Enough waffle from me, over to the show itself. Now Diceni has a much different approach to your standard War Games show, its more of a showcase event, to promote different aspects of the hobby, its not all about figure gaming, and that adds to its appeal. Out the front of the building, there are the re-enactors from the Norwich And Norfolk Medieval Association, plus what I think was another LARP group, and I feel bad that I cannot remember who they were.

Inside you have a mix of Historical, Sci-Fi and fantasy games, both demo and participation, and a selection of great traders, some of whom who have journeyed a fair distance to support the show.

The games all look great, a lot of effort has gone into them, and it shows ( I shall be stealing pictures to post on here very soon)

Wandering about the show, are the cosplay crowd, and its a bonkers mix of all sorts, Stormtroopers, Super Heroes, even a Japanese Geisha lady!! I always thought that the cosplay crowd were a funny lot, but meeting them at the show changed my opinion, they are a marvelous bunch of people, and they gave the show a brilliant splash of colour.

There I sat, and spent the entire day chatting, to a lovely mix of people, some were gamers, some were just passing by, and had taken the chance to pop in and have a look. I lost count of the kind comments that people made, and for someone like myself, who has a crushing lack of confidence in what they do, it made my day to see that people were genuinely impressed with the models I had on show, and by what I could do.

I spoke to small children about Airfix kits, and the joys of Lego, to a German gentlemen who was waxing lyrical about how welcoming eveyone was, to a radio control tank modeller, who had video of his model on his phone, that was impressive I can tell you, I talked about making art from deconstructing things with an American artist, and one group of people towards the end of the day stopped at the table, they had just wandered in because they saw the people outside the venue, and it piqued their interest, we had a chat about the hobby, laughed about the geekiness of it all, and one of them said,

"we just came in for a laugh, but I have to say, I never realised just how involved your hobby is, its been a real eye opener for us, fantastic show, and thank you for taking the time to talk to us"

Says it all really,

Diceni is a great little show, sure you can point a critical finger at it, and say, the mix is wrong, the wargames should have bigger tables, you should invite the big traders, why not do it on a Saturday, you should move to a bigger venue outside of the city, and yes all good and valid points,

Somehow the show works, and it works really well, is not broke, it does not need fixing.

What Diceni does really well, is that it attracts new people to the hobby, it showcases what we all love, and gives us the chance to pass on our hobby to other people.

If I have managed to inspire one single person, to have a crack at making something out of plasticard, or to convert a model, then my time was worth it.

Will I return next year?

Yes indeed, and I hope to repeat my set up, and improve it a bit too, as my hand written bits of paper looked a trifle unprofessional, plus I shall take a small supply of snap together models, so when a youngster stops to chat, and tell me how "awesome" my models are, I can hand them a kit, and say, "take it home, have a go, and I hope you get the bug to do some more"

I'll leave you with a couple of pics, first off, the bike I was working on Yesterday at the show, and my Steampunk Boudi miniature, to remind me of how fun a day I had

and finally, an image from one of the show attendees

Mark Bosanquet-Bryant, who was inspired by the show to build up his newly set up gaming club, and his picture shows the spirit of the show, it is all about joining in, and showing people what we do, its about making our hobby accessible , and its what Diceni does so very well

Congratuations Lee Lowe, another success for you and your Dicenians,

heres to 2016

STOP PRESS

There was a picture of me, looking a bit, well errrrrrrr, "strange" there I am with me good mate Si talking nonsense to some poor unsuspecting member of the public

Saturday, 11 April 2015

I had a pop at those UnderFire Minatures, and here is the end result!!

Hmmmmmmm, not so sure I got the uniform right, and that Strichtarn is the very devil to paint.

Overall, nice figures to paint, well detailed, with lots of nice little touches.

One word of warning, be very careful with your clean up. The figure in the photos had some bloody awful mould lines, right down its face, and across the steel helmet, right difficult to clean off without destroying the detail, and I missed a right horror on his back pack :-(

For those of you who give a damn, the paint colours used are as follows

Back pack and Gasmask bag are Vallejo Colour German Uniform mixed with Medium Grey,

Helmet is Scale Colour Graphene Grey, with a heavy wash of Scale Colour Petroleum Grey over the netting bit.

I would explain the face it as well, but that list involves about seven different colours, and its not worth bothering with TBH.

I did struggle with this model, but it was more of my own making, having decided to paint on the raindrops, which ended up being a very frustrating 60 minutes, that involved a lot of very bad language.

Did I get it right? well over to you folks

Suffice to say, it was a nice break, but I am going back to Spain, as there are no mental camo patterns involving tiny little raindrops there.

Next venture, for those of you who "enjoy" the videos, a start to finish guide to painting a Spanish Foreign Legion figure, heavily edited into as short a space as possible.........going to be riveting for sure.

I may do a Vehicle one too, as I have a T-26 on standby, and it might be fun to watch an idiot hack it about, and then attempt one of those model show paint jobs on it.

Sunday, 5 April 2015

H.L.B.S, 1/48th B.M.P-1 Model - Review

The BMP-1 is a fully armored Amphibious Infantry Fighting Vehicle (AIFV). Its low-silhouetted hull has a sharp, sloping front with a conspicuously ridged surface.

A centrally located, extremely flat, truncated cone turret mounts a 73-mm smoothbore gun and a 7.62-mm coaxial machine-gun. A launching rail for an AT-3 SAGGER antitank guided missile attaches above the gun. The 290-hp, water-cooled, 6-cylinder diesel engine is in the right front of the hull. The driver's hatch is at the left front, directly in front of the commander's hatch, which mounts an IR searchlight. The gunner's hatch is on the left side of the low turret roof. On the rear are four large hatches in the roof of the troop compartment; there are two large exit doors in the rear.

There are four firing ports in each side of the troop compartment and one in the left rear door. A combination of effective antitank firepower, high mobility, and adequate protection makes the BMP a formidable improvement over the earlier BTR-series of armored personnel carriers. It's 73-mm main gun fires a rocket-assisted, fin-stabilized HEAT projectile with an effective range of 800 to 1000 meters.

It also has an automatic loader. For longer range antitank capability, the BMP-1 carries the AT-3 SAGGER ATGM, effective to 3000 meters. The BMP is amphibious, propelled through the water by its tracks. It has the range and speed necessary to keep up with the fast-moving tanks it normally follows in offensive formations.

The BMP has a three-man crew. This includes the vehicle commander, who becomes the squad leader when the eight infantry passengers it can carry, dismount through the rear exit doors. Vision blocks and firing ports in the sides and rear of the troop compartment allow the infantrymen to fire assault rifles (AKM or AK-47) and light machine-guns (PKM or RPK-74) from inside the vehicle on the move. The troops also carry the RPG-7V or RPG-16 antitank grenade launcher, which can be fired by a passenger standing in a rear hatch.

The Review

Cast in sand coloured resin, and white metal, the kit consists of, The main body, two track section and a turret, plus smaller details in the shape of four headlights/searchlights, gun barrel, and an AT-3 Sagger AT missile launcher.

All the kit pieces are well cast, with a very minimum of air bubbles in the resin, and these are limited to the lower hull, and well out of sight.

Its a big old bugger of a model, 140mm long, 66mm wide and 40mm high, and will look quite impressive when its slapped on the gaming table.

Its a simple kit to build, a little bit of clean up was required to just remove a few areas of excess resin. With just 10 bits to glue together, even the most cack-handed gamer can assemble this model, but be warned, the lights are fiddly litle devils, and the the fat-fingered blunderers amongst you, may find them a little tricky to glue in place :-)

Detail wise, well its all there, enough to keep most gamers happy, and once painted, its sure to be a fairly accurate representation of the actual vehicle.

The model costs £25.00, ok its not cheap, but it is what you can expect to pay, for something in this scale, and as its going to be mainly used for skirmish level, you won't be buying 10 of them to equip your motor rifles battalion :-)

yep, I shall be adding more detail, and opening up at least one of the model's hatches, in fact I am ordering another two vehicles to work on, as I am building up a platoon force for my own reworking of "Chain of Command"

I love a challenge, and this kit gives me a chance to "improve" on the basic model, I shall endeavour to post progress pics as I go along, just so you can see what I am up to.